Bits & Pieces

UPS AND DOWNS: Another busy week here at MPA. CJ's Film Studies class is keeping us surprisingly busy watching a number of movies and analyzing them, his English class is very demanding (in a really good way), and his math class is a bad joke (no lectures whatsoever, just complicated problems and you're on your own). We're also striving to get some exercise daily via "Just Dance" on the Nintendo Switch, continuing baby steps on kitchen remodeling, getting Annabelle enrolled in college for fall, and spending a couple of hours a day online chasing COVID vaccines.

On Tuesday, we had a busy lunch time. At noon, we tuned in to a live presentation by David Buerge, author of "Chief Seattle and the Town that Took His Name" as part of the Lunch-and-Learn program by the Holocaust Center0 for Humanity. His book is the first biography of Chief Seattle intended for adults.

A biographer and historian, Buerge spent more than 20 years researching the Duwamish Tribe and Chief Seattle. One interesting fact we learned from him is that Seattle is the largest city in the world named after a Native American. 

Chief Seattle was multi-faceted. He was a warrior, an orator, and a creative visionary, and Buerge gave examples of each ... but part way through, we cut away to a SpaceX test flight of SN9, a big silvery rocket. Because, well, rocket launches are SO COOL. 

We'd watched the SN8 flight few weeks back, which was also SO COOL until the fiery landing.

Unfortunately, this go 'round was an example of history repeating itself. SN9 crashed even more spectacularly. 

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Back to the drawing board!

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, we tuned back in to the Chief Seattle presentation after the SpaceX launch and crash. But truth be told, we didn't stick around for the whole presentation. All three of us (CeeJ, Bee, and I) were having trouble following along with the kind of freestyle fact sharing by the presenter. But I have to tell you, he really lost us when he TOOK A PHONE CALL during the presentation. I mean, it's one thing to forget to turn off your ringer, we've all done that, but it's another to actually answer the phone (it wasn't an emergency) while you're in the middle of a presentation. 

SAVE THE DATES

The year 2021 is shaping up to be a busy one for spaceflight enthusiasts. 

On the agenda: Boeing and NASA have their second uncrewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, tentative launch date is March 25. This Orbital Flight Test-2 is a critical milestone for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, as NASA works with commercial partners to safely deliver crewed missions to the International Space Station.

Technicians observe Boeing’s Starliner crew module being placed on top of the service module in the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 14, 2021. The Starliner spacecraft is being prepared for Boeing’s second Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2). As part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, OFT-2 is a critical developmental milestone on the company’s path to fly crew missions for NASA. Photo credit: Boeing/John Proferes

NASA and Boeing are targeting no earlier than Thursday, March 25, for the launch of Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2, or OFT-2, is a critical developmental milestone on the company’s path to fly crew missions for NASA to the International Space Station.

About a month later, SpaceX has a launch date for Crew-2, on April 20. This second crew rotation mission with astronauts launching to the International Space Station. This mission is carrying a pair of NASA astronauts, as well as two international partner crew members.

Members of the SpaceX Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station participated in training in Hawthorne, California, on Jan. 11, 2021. Pictured from left are ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. Photo Credit: SpaceX

Back from Beyond

THERE IS ANOTHER: A Sunday stop at our mailbox brought a double dose of good news. "There's a purple envelope in there!" I told CJ as I peered in the box.

We pulled it out and the envelope was from the University of Washington Tacoma. The flap had "CONGRATULATIONS" in all caps.  That was encouraging.

Sure 'nuff, he opened it up and there was a letter letting him know he'd been accepted for admission for the school year starting this September. 

That was really good news, because CJ is keenly interested in attending UW-Tacoma, as they have a history major and a museum studies minor.

There was also a nondescript #10 (business) envelope from Eastern Washington University in the box. CJ opened that up and found a letter letting him know he'd been awarded a (renewable!) $3,000 annual scholarship, should he choose to attend there. (He's looking at the EWU at Bellevue College program.)  That was some nice news.

So now, he's heard from every school he applied to, and received a 'yes' from each. Now, we wait for financial aid/assistance offers from each. We're not sure when those will show up, but hopefully sooner rather than later. It would be nice if he could make a decision.

One thing I did toward that decision day end today was make a spreadsheet listing his five options, the tuition rate there, financial aid offers, scholarships offers, location and what getting there would look like, degree programs he's interested in at each, and notes. It took me about three hours to chase down and compile all that info, but it's good to have it all in one place.

DOWN TIME: There was a dearth of posts last week, in large part because I made the terrible mistake of getting a flu shot and the shingles vaccine on the same day.

I don't think it was the flu shot that did me in. I've never had a reaction to one before. But that shingles vax, yowza. I had the immunization on Wednesday, and Thursday morning woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. I started Googling side effects of the shingles vaccine on the Shingrix site.

Check, check, check, check, check, check and check. I had ALL the things. Bummer. Thursday is a blur. Friday I was still puny. By Saturday I was pretty OK. It would have been good to have that information about the side effects before I got the shot, because I'm here to tell you, if I had to work on Thursday, I would not have been able to, no way.

SNACK PACK: Today's special delivery was a box full of treats from South Africa.

The gift was part of a SnackCrate subscription Kennedy got for CJ for Christmas. CJ is looking forward to a taste of South Africa, a destination a little more than 10,000 miles away from us, as the crow flies.

RED PLANET READY: We're just a couple of weeks away from a really big deal, spaceflight wise. NASA's latest mission to Mars is set to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021, with a rover named Perseverance on board. "This robotic astrobiologist will search for signs of ancient life, pave the way for human exploration, and collect rock and soil samples for future return to Earth," NASA noted in a press release.

                    Illustration: NASA

NASA is inviting people to a virtual NASA Social event due to track the mission's big milestone. It happens on Thursday, February 18, from 11:15 AM to 1:30 PM PST. To participate, you can follow this link: https://fb.me/e/cKrbdHVXG  It takes you to a Facebook page where you can ask questions and get answers from NASA experts, connect with other space enthusiasts, watch live as Perseverance lands, and you even get a NASA social badge to share online or print out.